Monthly Archives: February 2006

Secret Angry Asian Men

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From time to time, Ennis and Vinod remind me of the awesomeness of the Secret Asian Man comic strip. They’re drawn by Boston artist Tak Toyoshima, and although only a few are specifically about desis, there are tons of parallels.

Jet Li and Aaliyah in ‘Romeo Must Die’

If Secret Asian Man hooked up with Angry Asian Man, we’d have Secret Angry Asian Men. And where you find Secret Angry Asian Men, mutiny hangs thick in the air. (Whereas around Fat Happy Asian Men, you find muttony hanging. Very different.)

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What do you think of Dilip? Isn’t he dreamy?

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In a post that I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Maryland’s incumbent Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich was spotted trying to drum up Indian American votes (for his re-election) at an India Republic Day event in Greenbelt, MD. Politicians usually get a free pass at these functions. The star-struck desi uncles that play host, mostly just want their pictures taken with the candidate so that they can brag about how successful they are. Thankfully, we have dedicated South Asian journalists to report on the real policy issues that interest you and I. Rediff-India Abroad reports:

In an exclusive interview with rediff-India Abroad Managing Editor Aziz Haniffa, [Ehrlich] acknowledges that the catalytic contributions of the Indian American community were a major boon to the burgeoning economy of the state.

Ehrlich, who has never visited India but plans to do so soon, said he was elated over the transformed US-India relationship. “As India becomes and assumes more of a world power status, it’s incumbent upon both countries to not just re-establish, but increase levels of cooperation,” he said.

Well…I suppose getting the “Have you ever been to India?” question out of the way is okay, as long as he additionally asks some tough policy questions. After all, the whole PURPOSE of interviewing Ehrlich should be to highlight his stance on key issues that affect Indian-Americans voters in Maryland. Here are some of the questions:

  • One of your most senior aides, Dilip Paliath, has announced his candidacy to run for the legislative assembly from District 42 and you have, I believe, endorsed him. My question is, will you be on the stump for him at some of his campaign stops?
  • And you believe Dilip is a winning candidate?
  • What would you say to the Indian American community in supporting Dilip and any other young candidates who may come along? The so-called leaders of the community have this insatiable propensity for photo-ops, contribute handsomely to their campaigns, but when it comes to someone running for public office, it’s almost impossible to convince them to put their money where their mouth is.
  • Dilip serves in a senior position in your administration but there aren’t any other Indian Americans in cabinet-level positions in your administration. Several governors I’ve interviewed always say they would love to have some of the qualified Indian Americans in their administration but many of them make so much money in the private sector that it’s hard to coax them to serve in the public sector. Have you faced the same problem?
  • Have you been to India, and if not, do you intend to visit India soon? [Link]

So let me summarize what has just happened here. Rediff-India Abroad is giving the Republican Governor free publicity, which will translate to at least a few more votes on election day, and all they really want to know in return is what Ehrlich thinks of Dilip Paliath, and whether or not any more brown folks might serve in Ehrlich’s second administration. This is exactly the reason why I blog on SM and why Rediff-India Abroad is useless to my demographic. I don’t f*cking care what Ehrlich thinks about Paliath. I want to know how his policies will affect Indian-Americans if he is elected to another term. Continue reading →

Fun, Frolic and Heavy Lifting

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Yesterday was Thai Pusam – the most important festival for the Indian community in Malaysia. The festival is celebrated in honor of the Hindu God Karthikeya – the younger son of Shiva and falls around the full moon day in the Tamil month of Thai. There is some dispute about what Thai Pusam actually commemorates – several versions exist, but the most popular one is that it is the birthday of Karthikeya.

Thai Pusam is a giant carnival – an long stretch of road leading to the local Karthikeya temple is cordoned off, and a large number of people – wearing equally large quantities of jewellery – congregate for a few hours of fun tinted with devotion. In Penang, in spite of the constant drizzle, this year’s celebration was apparently one of the best attended – at least a hundred thousand people showed up. The street leading to the Waterfall Temple was lined with makeshift “water tents” – most sponsored by multinationals – that provided colorful liquids for free to anyone that showed up.

Among the visitors that passed on the refreshments were the Western tourists armed with Sony Handycams and increasingly incredulous expressions – because Thaipusam has another side to it. Belief has it that Karthikeya would grant the wishes of people who visit His temple on Thaipusam bearing burdens (called Kavadis) and over the years people have interpreted the belief as meaning that the more pain you inflict on yourself – increasing the burden – the more the odds are of your wish being granted.

At its simplest [the kavadi] may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common. The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Fire walking and flagellation may also be practiced. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind. However, some of the more extreme masochistic practices have been criticized as dangerous and contrary to the spirit and intention of Hinduism.

The largest Thaipusam celebrations take place in Malaysia and Singapore. The temple at the Batu Caves, near Kuala Lumpur, often attracts over one million devotees and tens of thousands of tourists. The procession to the caves starts at the MahaMariamman Temple in the heart of the city and proceeds for 15 kilometers to the caves, an 8-hour journey culminating in a flight of 272 steps to the top. In Malaysia, although rare, scenes of people from different ethnic groups and faiths bearing “kavadi” can also be seen. Interestingly, Thaipusam is also increasingly being celebrated by the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. [Link]

An elaborate refreshment tent; there must’ve been several hundreds of these along the street.

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Gettin’ Sikhi wid it

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The last thing you want to hear in bed: ‘Smallville’

The Partition trailer is now online, and it’s giving me déjà vu (thanks, Jay):

Partition: In the midst of one such massacre, Gian [Singh] finds Naseem, a 17-year-old Muslim girl, and takes her under his protection. They gradually find themselves drawn to each other but, as their remarkable story plays out, the obstacles to their happiness prove all but insurmountable… [Link]

Gadar: During [Partition], Tara Singh, a truck driver, rescues a young woman named Sakina, both fall in love with each other and get married. When things calm down, Sakina decides to travel across the border to Pakistan to visit her father… [who] tries to separate her and Tara… [Link]

From the trailer at least, it looks like a straight rip, but like Gangsta M.D., it’s in the reverse direction from usual. Director Vic Sarin’s pitch: Gadar meets The English Patient, minus the anti-Pakistan jingoism. He’s even kept the scene where Sunny Deol goes apeshit in front of his home to defend the girl from a raging mob.

Jimi Mistry plays a hot turbanwala, Neve Campbell stars as a Brit. Kristin Kreuk’s bare back is seamless, her desi accent not. She actually sounds a whole lot like Sheetal Sheth attempting the accent, which says something about assimilation.

I have zero problem with a non-desi lead actress here. This looks like a tightly-focused young love story (the score reminds me of trifling period romances like A Knight’s Tale), not an epic history of Partition. There are plenty of light-eyed Muslim women, and it’s not like they cast Jessica Simpson as Indira Gandhi.

No, my question is: Kristin Kreuk?! Undeniably cute, but so chirpy she makes Tweety Bird sound like Droopy Dog.

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Community cable, the gift that keeps on giving

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Some Black Israelites wear very Sikh-looking turbans and beards (thanks, Ennis):

Remember that Marley song?

African American and African Caribbean Christianity had long developed a comparison of their experience in the New World with that of the Jews held in slavery in Egypt, particularly as regards the Book of Exodus… [Link]

We know where we’re going; we know where we’re from
We’re leaving Babylon, we’re going to our fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people…
Send us another Brother Moses gonna cross the Red Sea…

— Bob Marley, ‘Exodus‘

A small number took the analogy literally and moved to Israel:

The African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem is a small religious group whose members believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. With a population of over 2000, most members live in their own community in Dimona, Israel. The Black Hebrews practice polygamy. [Link]

In contrast, the guy on TV was ranting against Israel even while sitting beneath a Star of David:

Some Black Hebrew Israelites, like Israelite Heritage, are anti-Semitic, and focus on Jews, as Edomites and Khazars acting on behalf of Satan and secretly controlling the United States. [Link]

Related posts: Da Star in dastar, Everyone recycles

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White guys in turbans

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More white guys in badly-tied turbans, no beards, speaking in that bad simulacrum of a non-existent accent, folding their hands and calling each other Akmed, wearing nametags that say ‘Singh.’ That’s Scott LaRose with a very complicit Art Malik on the left (thanks, BB).

It’s like an entire generation modeled their insulting stereotypes on Peter Sellers. And, like Bollywood, TV and film for black audiences tend to be even more casually racist about desis and East Asians than mainstream media.

But then you should never take a movie like Booty Call (1997) seriously, not even in reruns It’s got characters named Lysterine, Yoyo, Ug Lee and Bunz.

Watch the clip (12MB; you need a BitTorrent downloader: Windows, Mac).

Related posts: Peter Sellers still outsells actual desis, Giants, dwarves and lemurs, Goodness gracious, Peter Sellers is alive, Mr. Birdie Num-Num gets a biopic, ”The Party” remake

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You know everything’s changed when…

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You know everything’s changed when you see a black kid wearing this throwback varsity jacket on the subway and realize that…

  1. After 7/7, you could never wear it on the subway, and

  2. Subway cops are now inaccurately suspicious more of you than of him
Fritz Pollard formed this African-American football team ([New York Brown Bombers], named for African-American heavyweight boxer Joe Louis) after the NFL adopted a policy of segregation. [Link]

… the Brown Bombers [were] a professional team that played in Harlem for three highly successful seasons – funded by a loan from John D. Rockefeller Jr., a friend from Pollard’s days at Brown. The Bombers’ roster was a Who’s Who of black athletes at the time, including players from basketball and baseball leagues as well as former NFL stars. The Depression and the war ended the Brown Bombers’ run in 1938. [Link]

By the way, the Brown Bombers jacket is not actually a bomber jacket, and the Brown Bombers are not the same as the Bronx Bombers, the Brooklyn Bombers or the London bombers.

Related post: Worst timing ever

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RTFT-shirt

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I am a very patient man. Still, even I sometimes get tired of explaining to people who I am, what I am, where I come from, and what I am not. I found this on flickr, and think it would be perfect for those days when I just don’t want to go through the song and dance. It would make a great t-shirt:

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Wax dummy

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A new off-Broadway play about a desi student’s loss of innocence is running off-Broadway through Feb. 25. Huck & Holden refers, of course, to two iconic characters in American lit (thanks, SD).

Here’s a positive review:

Navin’s story begins deceptively, as a collegiate, slapstick coming-to-America tale about a young man just arrived from Calcutta, who’s as clueless about American literature as he is about sex. But as Navin (Nick Choksi) begins exploring his newfound independence, and his burgeoning feelings for the pretty young librarian Michelle (Cherise Boothe), the story transforms into one of unexpected soul and depth…

And, of course, there’s Kali, fancifully realized here as the embodiment of chaos working to establish order, and dazzlingly portrayed by Nilaja Sun. Her careful steps, strenuously stylized hand gestures, and ugly-meets-beautiful dance to cover Navin and Torry’s fisticuffs make her a hilarious and horrifying joy to watch. [Link]

And one more faint:After discovering Navin with a porn mag called Brown Honey, Torry teaches him how to wax a girl’s @ss

Navin’s introduction to the American way of life is explored almost solely through sex, particularly as embodied in the person of Michelle (Boothe), an African-American library worker who befriends Navin while undergoing a breakup with her tough-guy boyfriend Torry (McClain). There is obvious comic potential in this particular culture clash, but the action coasts entirely on the undignified level of racial burlesque, replete with a contrived scenario in which Torry, after discovering Navin with a porn mag called Brown Honey, proceeds to give the naïve Indian a tutorial in how to wax a girl’s ass…

Michelle receives visitations from the Hindu goddess Kali (Nilaja Sun), incarnated here as a trash-talkin’ mama whose caricature, if borderline offensive, at least breathes some life onto the stage. Still, if you’re not fond of stereotypes, do yourself a favor and read some Twain and Salinger instead. [Link]

Huck & Holden, Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St., Manhattan; through Feb 25, Tue – Fri at 7pm, Sat at 3pm and 7pm; buy tickets

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‘Tumhara naam kya hai, Basanti?’

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‘What’s your name, Basanti?’: Rang De Basanti is a commercial blockbuster in the guise of protest cinema. While City of God rose from the barrios, Basanti rose from Juhu Beach. Yes, it’s an earnest critique of corruption and apathy. But it’s also Aamir Khan’s second Lagaan clone: same English love interest, same chest-pounding nationalism, same period costume drama. Our Peter Pan in high-waisted pants is calculating and relentless.

Basanti hangs on an interesting gimmick: an English filmmaker persuades a group of Delhi University students to act in her documentary. As they reenact the Indian independence struggle, they evolve from cynical partiers into hardcore patriots. But after real life (or intermission) intrudes, the plot goes medieval on your ass.

Aamir Khan leans on the same regional rube routine he’s used since Rangeela, only he’s Punjabi Sikh, not Marathi. The real stars are Saif Ali’s über-cute sister Soha Ali Khan, the handsome Kunal Kapoor (no relation to Shashi Kapoor’s son) and A.R. Rahman’s romantic ditty ‘Tu Bin Bataye.’

The movie begins a wastrel yuuuth flick like Dil Chahta Hai and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. There’s lots of cheesy ’80s rock guitar, very Karate Kid. Cool, yaar, stop pressurizing me, let’s freak out. At least the cheese is set off with slick music vid cuts. Then it mashes the patriotism button hard with fighter jets streaming the colors of the tiranga. It’s Top Guna for those still in the crib when Goose was in the sod.

The movie smothers its best idea in Bollywood-style subtlety, which is to say none. Like in Africa, corrupt politicians have replaced European colonists as the Man who’s Keepin’ You Down. It’s a neat transposition, but for the mentally slow, the director dissolves the Butcher of Jallianwalla Bagh directly into a corrupt government minister. It’s like admiring someone from afar until they leer at you and grab their crotch.

On the other hand, the blonde isn’t fetishized here, nor is she the babe; that falls to Soha Ali Khan. Alice Patten delivers her lines in the best phonetic Hindi I’ve heard from a Brit actor yet. And it’s always fun watching photogenic desi jocks — those are not the types let into the U.S. on brains. It’s a reasonably original script, not a lift of Oldboy, The Game or Fight Club (thanks, GC). It’s a current issues film, which in the U.S. is considered death at the box office. And it touched me, I let the manipulation in.

This is one of the three-to-four Bollywood movies a year truly worth seeing. I dislike the showy, force-fed patriotism, and the motorcycle/electric guitar factor is tacky and lame, but the issues it tackles are extremely topical: India’s rising self-confidence, the end of the brain drain and a newfound determination to throw the bums out.

WARNING: Plot summary and spoilers below.

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